It would seem the Penn State women's tennis team is at a disadvantage.
For this week's ITA Regional Tournament, the other teams in the Big Ten are traveling to either the University of Cincinnati or Northwestern, giving them an extra early season look at each other for later in the year.
However, because of its geographical distance, Penn State will be traveling to Blacksburg, Va., to face schools like Virginia Tech and the University of Virginia as a part of the Atlantic region.
Nevertheless, the team doesn't view this as a problem at all, thanks to its diverse fall scheduling.
"I don't know if they are all in the same regions, but a few of them probably are," assistant coach Evan Clark said. "But I don't think it's any setback at all."
Clark said the biggest reason this won't hurt the Nittany Lions is because of the competition the team faced at its last tournament, the University of Kentucky Invitational.
Big Ten schools Ohio State State, Michigan and Illinois were all in attendance, giving Penn State the opportunity it will be missing out on this weekend.
"Michigan is the second strongest team. Ohio State and Illinois are pretty much up there too," senior Lauren McCarthy said. "It was nice to see the freshmen that they have recruited and brought on to their team just to get a sneak peak at them, a preview for the spring."
Clark agreed that the chance to see these three schools' new freshmen play this early in the season will help tremendously later in the year.
On top of playing the three Big Ten powerhouses already, Penn State will be traveling to West Lafayette, Ind., for the Purdue Invitational to close out the fall season.
"Big Tens is probably the most important time of the year," Clark said. "We got to see those three teams last weekend. We play the Purdue Tournament in November so we get to see Purdue and maybe another Big Ten team so it just helps a lot moving forward in the spring with scouting."
While not everyone got the opportunity to play someone else from the Big Ten, the players that did are planning on sharing their knowledge of their rivals when the time comes.
For instance, McCarthy played Denise Muresan from Michigan at the University of Kentucky Invitational in a match she said was more competitive because of in-conference intensity.
"I think it'll only better prepare us for the spring," McCarthy said, "because now I have something to provide to, let's say, Masha [Maria Prishlyak] if she were to play the same girl or she could provide something to me."
Prishlyak said this familiarity is helpful because the team gets to see how the other teams play and make the necessary adjustments with game plan.
Like Clark, Prishylak doesn't think the missed opportunity to play another Big Ten rival at this weekend's ITA Regional Tournament will hurt the team.
"No because that's the same way," she said. "They are not going to be able to see us play, [just] as we're not going to be able to see them play. So it's good."
